More than 50 from same family killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza
More than 50 from same family killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza/node/2413576/middle-east
More than 50 from same family killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza
Relatives cry during the funeral of Palestinian Hussein Abu Jaasa, 52, who was killed during an Israeli raid in the Balata refugee camp, in Nablus, occupied West Bank, on Wednesday. (AFP)
More than 50 from same family killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza
Six Palestinians shot dead in West Bank
Pope: Conflict has gone beyond war on terror
Updated 23 November 2023
AFP Reuters
LONDON/TULKARM/VATICAN: More than 50 members of the same family have been killed in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza during Israel’s military campaign there, the Palestinian foreign minister said on Wednesday.
“Only this morning, from the Qadoura family in Jabalia, 52 people have been wiped out completely, killed,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki said on the sidelines of a briefing by Arab and Muslim foreign ministers in London.
“I have the list of the names, 52 of them, they were wiped out completely from grandfather to grandchildren.”
Six Palestinians were shot dead in an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
More than 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers across the West Bank since the Hamas attacks on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, according to the ministry.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the Israeli army stormed the refugee camp in the northern city of Tulkarem and briefly detained a 16-year-old with shrapnel wounds to his face.
A 26-year-old young woman “beaten by the Israeli army” had been transferred to hospital, the Red Crescent added.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that it treated a total of 26 injured, including four with bullet wounds, in the West Bank towns of Tulkarem, Bethlehem, Tubas and Qalqilya.
Israeli officials say an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed across southern Israel in the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7.
Pope Francis on Wednesday met separately with Israeli relatives of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinians with family in Gaza and said the conflict had gone beyond war to become “terrorism.”
Speaking in unscripted remarks at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square shortly after the meetings in his residence, Francis said he heard directly how “both sides are suffering” in the conflict.
“This is what wars do. But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism,” he said.
He asked for prayers so that both sides would “not go ahead with passions, which, in the end,
kill everyone.”
During the general audience, a group of Palestinians in the crowd held up pictures of bodies wrapped in white cloth and a placard saying “the Nakba continues.”
Nakba is the Arab word for catastrophe and refers to the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in the 1948 war that surrounded Israel’s founding.
Meanwhile, the head of the UN children’s agency called the besieged Gaza Strip “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” and said that the hard-won truce deal was not enough to save their lives.
UNICEF’s executive director Catherine Russell told the UN Security Council that over 5,300 children have reportedly been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, accounting for 40 percent of the deaths.
“This is unprecedented,” said Russell, who had just returned from a trip to southern Gaza. “I am haunted by what I saw and heard.”
Russell said that a pause is not enough and called for “an urgent humanitarian ceasefire to immediately put a stop to this carnage.”
“For children to survive ... for humanitarian workers to stay and effectively deliver ... humanitarian pauses are simply not enough,” she said. Russell said that an additional 1,200 children are believed to remain under the rubble of bombed-out buildings or are otherwise unaccounted for.
“In addition to bombs, rockets, and gunfire, Gaza’s children are at extreme risk from catastrophic living conditions,” Russell added.
“One million children — or all children inside the territory — are now food insecure, facing what could soon become a catastrophic nutrition crisis.”
UNICEF estimates that acute malnutrition in children could increase by nearly 30 percent in Gaza over the next months.
Also addressing the Security Council, the head of the UN Population Fund, Natalia Kanem, drew attention to the plight of Gaza’s pregnant women, with some 5,500 expected to deliver babies under appalling conditions in the coming month.
“At a moment when new life is beginning, what should be a moment of joy is overshadowed by death and destruction, horror and fear,” said Kanem.
Hospital chief decries ‘extreme catastrophe’ in north Gaza
Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hossam Abu Safiyeh told AFP by phone: “The situation in northern Gaza is that of an extreme catastrophe
Updated 6 sec ago
AFP
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The World Health Organization expressed grave concern on Tuesday for hospitals still partly operating in war-stricken northern Gaza, where one hospital director described the situation as an “extreme catastrophe.”
“We are very, very concerned, and it’s getting harder and harder to get the aid in. It’s getting harder and harder to get the specialist personnel in at a time when there is greater and greater need,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told journalists in Geneva.
She said the organization was “particularly concerned about Kamal Adwan Hospital” in Beit Lahia, where Israeli forces launched an offensive against Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups last month.
Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hossam Abu Safiyeh told AFP by phone: “The situation in northern Gaza is that of an extreme catastrophe.
“We’re beginning to lose patients because we lack medical supplies and personnel,” he said.
Abu Safiyeh added that his hospital had been “targeted many times by the occupation forces, most recently” on Monday.
“A large number of children and elderly people continue to arrive suffering from malnutrition,” the doctor said.
He accused Israel of “blocking the entry of food, water, medical staff and materials destined for the north” of the Gaza Strip.
The WHO’s Harris estimated that between November 8 and 16, “four WHO missions we were trying to get up to go were denied.”
“There’s a lack of food and drinking water, shortage of medical supplies. There’s really only enough for two weeks at the very best,” she said.
A statement from COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said Tuesday: “COGAT-led humanitarian efforts in the medical field continue.”
It said that on Monday, “1,000 blood units were transferred” to Al-Sahaba hospital in Gaza City, outside the area where Israel’s military operations are taking place.
In its latest update on the situation in northern Gaza, the UN humanitarian office OCHA said Tuesday that “access to the Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesian hospitals remains severely restricted amid severe shortages of medical supplies, fuel and blood units.”
Turkiye asks export group to help snuff out Israel trade
Ankara has faced public criticism that trade may be continuing with Israel since a ban in May
Updated 9 min 54 sec ago
Reuters
ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s government has asked one of the country’s top export associations to help enforce a ban on trade with Israel, slowing the flow of goods in recent weeks, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Ankara has faced public criticism that trade may be continuing with Israel given a spike in exports to the Palestinian territories since the ban in May. So it turned to the Central Anatolian Exporters’ Association, the sources said.
The Trade Ministry has asked the association to require more checks and approvals of proposed shipments, including vetting with Palestinian authorities, they said.
One of the sources, from an export association, said the new system began in mid-October, causing an initial backlog. The “main concern was goods still going to Israel, so there is a procedural change in exports to Palestine,” he said.
In response to a query, the Trade Ministry said goods were only shipped if approved by Palestinian authorities under a bilateral trade mechanism. “The destination is Palestine and the importer is a Palestinian,” it said.
According to official Turkish Statistical Institute data, Turkiye, among the fiercest critics of Israel’s war in Gaza, has cut exports there to zero since May, from a monthly average of $380 million in the first four months of the year.
But at the same time exports to Palestinian territories — which must flow through Israel — jumped around 10-fold to a monthly average of $127 million in June-September, from only $12 million in the first four months of the year, the data show.
The top goods leaving Turkish ports and earmarked for Palestinian territories in recent months are steel, cement, machinery, and chemicals, according to the Turkish Exporters Assembly, also known as TIM.
The jump in such exports raised suspicions the trade ban was being circumvented, sparking street protests that questioned one of the main policies President Tayyip Erdogan’s government imposed to oppose Israel’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
Opposition lawmakers have also sought answers in parliament.
Trade Minister Omer Bolat said this month that, before the ban, some $2 billion of Turkiye’s $6.5 billion annual trade with Israel was goods ultimately purchased by Palestinian buyers.
Last week, Bolat told parliament that the Palestinian Economy Ministry vetted all shipments. Turkiye’s Trade Ministry said that Palestinian confirmations then run through an electronic system, after which customs declarations require a separate approval.
The Central Anatolian Exporters’ Association is an umbrella body for sector-specific export groups. In the past, they all usually quickly approved shipments with little question, the sources said.
Under the new instructions from the government, the association is the main approval body, two sources said. It must first confirm receipt of information about the proposed export including the Palestinian authorities’ approval, and then approve a separate application for export, they said.
The first source said the system was working now, but slower than in the past due to relevant checks.
In the first 10 months of the year, exports to Palestinian territories were up 543 percent from a year earlier, TIM data show. In the first four months, before the Israel ban was imposed, they were up only 35 percent.
Lebanon’s first responders caught in the line of Israel-Hezbollah fire
Israeli military claims Iran-backed Lebanese militia is using ambulances to transport arms and fighters
Rights group says civil defense workers, even if affiliated with Hezbollah, are protected under laws of war
Updated 3 min 5 sec ago
ANAN TELLO
LONDON: Since tensions between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah flared up on Oct. 8 last year, paramedics and rescue workers in south Lebanon have found themselves in the line of fire, despite their protected status under international humanitarian law.
In the latest deadly incident, at least 13 people were killed on Thursday in an Israeli strike that hit the main civil defense center in the eastern Baalbek area, according to Lebanon’s General Directorate of Civil Defense.
Bachir Khodr, the regional governor, was quoted by BBC News as saying that the facility belonged to the Lebanese government and that among the victims was the city’s civil defense chief
In a post on X, EU High Representative Josep Borrell said the “EU strongly condemns” the loss of life and that the pattern of attack “mirrors appalling trends in other conflicts, from Syria to Ukraine or Sudan.”
As of Oct. 31, 2024, Israeli military strikes had killed at least 173 emergency workers, injured 277 others, and damaged 243 medical vehicles and 55 hospitals, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
Following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally. (AFP)
Humanitarian organizations and rights groups have joined the ministry in condemning attacks on first responders, their facilities, and ambulances.
“The killing of first responders in south Lebanon is a heartbreaking violation, not just of international law, but of basic humanity,” Tania Baban, the Lebanon country director of the US-based charity MedGlobal, told Arab News.
The media office of the Lebanese Civil Defense earlier shared with Arab News a list documenting 13 personnel and volunteers killed in Israeli strikes while performing their duties. The document, received on Nov. 13, detailed the victims’ names, positions and place of death.
Six of the deaths occurred in the southern governorate of Nabatieh, which has come under regular bombardment since mid-September, while six others occurred in the town of Dardaghia, east of Tyre, and one in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
An Israeli strike directly hit the civil defense center in Dardaghia on Oct. 9, leaving it “completely destroyed” and killing five of its staff, according to the organization’s media office.
Since the conflict began, at least 3,189 people — more than 770 of them women and children — have been killed. (AFP)
The document provided by the Lebanese Civil Defense also listed 70 personnel and volunteers injured in Israeli attacks while carrying out their duties. Injuries ranged in severity and included burns, head trauma, and inhalation of toxic fumes.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry condemned “the continued targeting of emergency medical teams by occupation forces,” calling on the international community “to put an end to this series of ongoing war crimes.”
The statement came after an airstrike on an ambulance in Zefta, a town in Nabatieh, reportedly killed a paramedic and injured two others on the morning of Oct. 31. According to the ministry, the vehicle belonged to the Al-Risala Emergency Medical Association.
“These are people who willingly risk their lives to help others, driven by a duty to save lives, often under extreme conditions. To see them become targets is devastating,” MedGlobal’s Baban said, referring to the first responders.
She said such attacks “undermine the very core of humanitarian work,” stressing that “medics are meant to be neutral, protected under international law.”
INNUMBERS
• 173+ First responders killed in Lebanon since October 2023.
• 243+ Emergency vehicles damaged across Lebanon.
• 55+ Healthcare facilities damaged.
(Source: Lebanese MOPH)
Indeed, Article 18 of the First Geneva Convention, Articles 16(1) and 17(1) of Protocol I, and Article 10(1) of Protocol II prohibit harming or punishing anyone performing medical activities, regardless of the person benefiting from them.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Oct. 30 that it had documented three direct Israeli attacks on “medical personnel, transports, and facilities” in Lebanon, which it said constituted “apparent war crimes.”
The three reported attacks involved a civil defense center in central Beirut on Oct. 3, as well as an ambulance and a hospital in southern Lebanon on Oct. 4, which killed 14 paramedics.
As of Oct. 31, 2024, Israeli military strikes had killed at least 173 emergency workers. (AFP)
In a statement on Oct. 11, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said the conflict had killed more than 100 medics and emergency workers across Lebanon within the past year.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said at least “27 attacks targeted ambulances used by first responders” since early October last year.
Following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally. Israel retaliated, sparking a year-long exchange of fire along the shared Israel-Lebanon border.
However, this tit-for-tat suddenly escalated in September, with Israel mounting a wave of air and ground attacks against Hezbollah’s communications network, weapons caches, and leadership, eliminating the group’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27.
Residential buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs have not been spared, nor have villages in south Lebanon, including Ayta Al-Shab, Ramyeh, Kfar Kila, and Mhaybib, according to an analysis of satellite data by The Washington Post.
Some 1.2 million people have been displaced from southern and eastern Lebanon, according to UN figures. As of Oct. 12, more than 283,000 of them — most of them Syrian nationals — had crossed the border into war-torn Syria.
Since the conflict began, at least 3,189 people — more than 770 of them women and children — have been killed, while some 14,078 others have been wounded, according to the Ministry of Public Health.
A document provided by the Lebanese Civil Defense also listed 70 personnel and volunteers injured in Israeli attacks while carrying out their duties. (AFP)
In Israel, 72 people have been killed by Hezbollah attacks, including 30 soldiers, according to the prime minister’s office. More than 60,000 people have been displaced from their homes.
The Israeli military has not denied targeting ambulances in south Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold that has become a battleground between Israeli forces and Lebanese and Palestinian armed groups. On Oct. 12, it even threatened to target medical vehicles.
Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army’s Arabic-speaking spokesperson, said: “Hezbollah operatives are using ambulances to transport fighters and arms.”
In a post on the social media platform X on Oct. 12, he warned that “action will be taken (by the Israeli military) against any vehicle carrying armed men, regardless of its type.”
Israel mounting a wave of air and ground attacks against Hezbollah’s communications network, weapons caches, and leadership. (AP)
Prior to Adraee’s statement, on Oct. 3, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported that Israel had struck a civil defense center in central Beirut belonging to the Islamic Health Committee, which is affiliated with Hezbollah.
The following day, the BBC reported that an Islamic Health Committee ambulance was struck near the entrance of Marjayoun Hospital in southern Lebanon, killing seven paramedics and forcing the facility to close.
Human Rights Watch said in its Oct. 30 statement that “membership or affiliation with Hezbollah, or other political movements with armed wings, is not a sufficient basis for determining an individual to be a lawful military target.”
“Medical personnel affiliated with Hezbollah, including those assigned to civil defense organizations, are protected under the laws of war,” the rights monitor added.
Article 18 of the First Geneva Convention, Articles 16(1) and 17(1) of Protocol I, and Article 10(1) of Protocol II prohibit harming or punishing anyone performing medical activities. (AFP)
It called on the Israeli military to “immediately halt unlawful attacks on medical workers and health care facilities,” urging Israel’s allies to “suspend the transfer of arms to Israel given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses.”
MedGlobal’s Baban said the targeting of first responders in Lebanon “leaves communities even more vulnerable, depriving families and neighborhoods of essential care and support at a time when they need it most.”
“Every attack on medical staff not only steals lives but shakes the hope and resilience of those they serve,” she said. “We must continue to demand respect and safety for all who work to heal and protect in these conflict zones.”
Last Israelis in bombed out Metula hope for Lebanon ceasefire to rebuild lives
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 44,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry
A senior US official said on Tuesday there was a “real opportunity” to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and that gaps were narrowing
Updated 44 min 10 sec ago
Reuters
METULA, Israel: When darkness descends on Metula, Tamira Lang, one of the Israeli border town’s last remaining residents, switches off her house lights to avoid detection by Lebanese group Hezbollah, whose fighters sit a few kilometers away.
Lang, who is part of the town’s small rapid response security force made up of local volunteers, has already been wounded by shrapnel from a projectile and had to put out a fire in her next door neighbor’s home caused by a salvo.
“We live in darkness. If they (Hezbollah) see light, I have no house,” she said, surveying damage to nearby homes that overlook the nearby Lebanese border.
Metula saw most of its population of some 2,200 people leave in early October last year after Hezbollah launched rocket attacks against Israel on Oct. 8 in solidarity with Palestinians after Islamist group Hamas launched a devastating raid on Israel, prompting Israel’s war in Gaza.
The US has led a renewed push in recent days to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah while Israeli forces have stepped up their offensive seeking to ensure that over 60,000 evacuated Israelis can return to their homes in the north.
A senior US official said on Tuesday there was a “real opportunity” to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and that gaps were narrowing. Sirens went off in Metula on Tuesday.
Parts of Metula, which was founded in 1896, have been destroyed with many houses smashed up by mortars or missiles fired from Lebanese villages that surround it, Reuters found on a visit this week to the town, which currently remains a closed military zone.
The periodic sound of artillery from Israeli batteries firing into Lebanon and a burning smell from bombed homes are constant reminders of the day-to-day reality for those who remain in Metula.
“You don’t hear the sound of birds anymore,” Lang said. “The silence can also be deafening,” she said.
Hezbollah has fired over 16,000 missiles at Israel, while massive Israeli airstrikes and ground operations have left 1 million Lebanese uprooted from their homes.
For Liat Cohen-Raviv, a Metula resident currently living in the northern Israeli town of Rosh Pina after being evacuated, people will need assurances before they move back.
“In order for me to come back, I need to know, first of all, that it’s safe, that I’m protected,” she said, noting past agreements had collapsed.
Cohen-Raviv said Israelis in the north were nervous after Israel released details last month which it said showed Hezbollah had dug tunnels under the border, with the aim of launching attacks into Israeli territory.
This has led to fears of a follow up to the Oct. 7 Hamas’ attacks in Israel that killed some 1,200 people, with 101 hostages still being held in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 44,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry.
A source close to Hezbollah told Reuters last month the tunnels detected by Israel were built for its Radwan special forces units to one day enter the Galilee region of northern Israel.
“Today, more than ever, you can’t allow this to be a weak border,” Cohen-Raviv said.
“Metula will need at least a year just to recover in terms of infrastructure,” she added.
A survey published by Israeli think tank INSS in early November found 80 percent of those polled – comprising Jews and Arabs living in Israel – said the current security situation does not allow the majority of residents to return to northern towns.
Ruslan Bachinsky, who was born in Ukraine, is also part of Metula’s security detail. His pregnant wife has been evacuated. He says Israel’s operations have meant Hezbollah is firing less at the town.
“But we know that something can happen in a minute ... there is danger all the time,” he said. “I think we (need) more time (to finish operations in Lebanon) ... Hezbollah is still next to Metula.”
“We are expecting a girl in four months and my wife doesn’t want to come back to Metula. So this is a problem. So unfortunately, it will take time.”
UN chief slams ‘systematic’ looting of Gaza humanitarian aid
Aid distribution in Gaza is complicated by shortages of fuel, war-damaged roads and looting
On Monday, Gaza’s interior ministry said it had carried out a major operation targeting looters
Updated 19 November 2024
AFP
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations chief on Tuesday denounced the “systematic” looting of humanitarian aid in Gaza, a day after the territory’s Hamas authorities said 20 people were killed in a security operation targeting such actions.
“Armed looting has become systematic and must end immediately. It is hindering life saving aid operations and further endangering the lives of our staff,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“However, the use of law enforcement operations must be lawful, necessary and proportionate.”
Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza in the early stages of the war last year, and the UN warned on November 9 that famine was looming in some areas due to a lack of aid.
Aid distribution in Gaza is complicated by shortages of fuel, war-damaged roads and looting, as well as fighting in densely populated areas and the repeated displacement of much of the territory’s 2.4 million people.
Several humanitarian officials have told AFP on condition of anonymity that almost half the aid that enters Gaza is looted, especially basic supplies.
On Monday, Gaza’s interior ministry said it had carried out a major operation targeting looters.
“More than 20 members of gangs involved in stealing aid trucks were killed in a security operation carried out by security forces in cooperation with tribal committees,” the ministry said in a statement.
It said the operation was “the beginning of a broad security campaign that has been long planned and will expand to include everyone involved in the theft of aid trucks.”
On Tuesday, the US-based Washington Post newspaper cited a UN memo as saying some of the gangs were receiving “passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israel Defense Forces.
Dujarric said he was unaware of the memo, but that the allegation was “fairly alarming” if true.
“The idea that the Israeli forces may be allowing looters or not doing enough to prevent it is frankly, fairly alarming, given the responsibilities of Israel as the occupying power to ensure that humanitarian aid is distributed safely,” he said.
